When good forces merge, so do bad ones
by Cattie
Summary: Harry Potter meets His Dark Materials meets Lord of the Rings meets Animorphs, with a tiny bit of Narnia. Eowyn living on fish, Atal being shot at by Dracon beams, and Howlers rampaging all over Hogwarts! (that bits not written yet) Plz r
1. Note on text

Note on Text  
  
This is just a story I decided to put together in honour of my four all time favourite book series. I don't know where it's going or how long it's going to be.  
  
So far, all characters in this story belong to JK Rowling (or maybe Warner Bros., I'm not quite sure), JRR Tolkien, KA Applegate and Philip Pullman  
  
Please Read and Review  
  
I had to re-upload this because it got taken off. Both my things did. 


	2. Lyra

~LYRA~  
  
Lyra was bored. She was trapped, it seemed, in a school full of idiot girls who only seemed interested in their own and their daemons apperances. She made her way out to the garden with the bench, even though it was early- January and nowhere near Midsummer.  
  
She sat down, and Pantalaimon sat on her knee, watching the trees, spattered with a light covering of snow, swaying softly in the wind.  
  
Then...she stiffened.  
  
Someone - or something - was watching her.  
  
She stood up quickly, as Pantalaimon sprang off her knee.  
  
"What is it, Pan" she whispered  
  
The daemon had noticed something, over by the blackberry bush, compelling her to turn her head. She did so, squinting in the dim light.  
  
It was a hawk. A red-tail.  
  
And there was something - not quite wrong, but different about it, in the way that Will had been.  
  
Lyra moved slowly closer to it, trying not to scare it off, but this hawk looked as though it couldn't be scared off even if she tried. There was a certain gleam of human intelligence in those fierce looking eyes.  
  
Then suddenly - it vanished.  
  
Lyra started in suprise, then advanced on the blackberry bush, trying to see where it had gone. She pulled back the prickles, wincing as the thorns cut her hands.  
  
Pantalaimon tried to pull her back. No, he said, don't go there  
  
"Shut up, Pan, I'm trying to concentrate" Lyra snapped  
  
She had found something. A small rippling in the air, like a heathaze. She grabbed a withered stick and poked at it.  
  
As she poked at it, the stick disappeared. Lyra yanked it back in shock. Then a stick, much smoother than her own, poked through. It suddenly started glowing. On an impulse, Lyra grabbed it. It sent a shock through her, almost magical.  
  
It was a sensation Lyra had never felt before. She had had Pantalaimon pulled away from her in the land of the dead, had her best friend killed by accident, experianced love and met angels, but magic was something she had never thought existed.  
  
The stick was pulled back, pulling her hand with it. She was pulled through the rippling, Pantalaimon sinking his teeth into her ankle to stay with her.  
  
Lyra landed with a thump on wooden boards facing upwards. Three faces were staring down at her, two boys and a girl. They looked terrified.  
  
"What are you looking at?" Lyra spat. 


	3. Frodo

~FRODO~  
  
Frodo lay motionless. Suddenly his eyes snapped open. At first he thought he was at home at Bag End, but then noticed the ceiling wasn't curved.  
  
"Where am I" he wondered aloud  
  
"In the house of Elrond" said Gandalf's voice  
  
Frodo sat up in surprise. Gandalf was sitting nearby on a chair.  
  
"How long have I been here?" Frodo asked  
  
"Nine days" replied Gandalf "Sam has hardly left your side"  
  
"Good old Sam. Can I get up?"  
  
"I should think so"  
  
Frodo found the Ring on a chain round his neck. He wondered who put it there.  
  
Sam came in "You're awake!"  
  
"Yes I - what in Eru's name is THAT?"  
  
"What"  
  
"That!" Frodo was pointing at a rippling in the air, like a heathaze.  
  
Sam went pale. Frodo walked slowly up to it warily.  
  
"Come away Mr Frodo, come back, it might be dangerous!"  
  
"Good idea" muttered Frodo "I'm going to ask Gandalf"  
  
They found Gandalf talking to Elrond. "What is it?" asked Elrond  
  
"Frodo has found something you really should see" said Sam nervously  
  
"Can it wait a few minutes" asked Gandalf apologetically  
  
"I suppose" said Frodo  
  
They waited an uncomfortable ten minutes waiting. Merry and Pippin came along.  
  
"Frodo you're awake!" said Pippin excitedly  
  
"I noticed" replied Frodo dully  
  
"Frodo found this thing...it's really weird" Sam added  
  
"What?"  
  
"It's like a rippling in the air. It feels strange, if you know what I mean" murmured Frodo  
  
"Oooh! Where is it?" asked Pippin excitedly  
  
"We were going to show Gandalf - here he is"  
  
"What was it you wanted to show me?" asked Gandalf  
  
"It was in my room"  
  
When they got to the room, the ripple was still there. Gandalf caught his breath in shock. "Wait here. I'm going to see if Elrond knows anything of this"  
  
When he had gone, Pippin jumped forwards to examine the ripple. He walked round to see it from the back.  
  
"Can you see me?"  
  
"Yes, but you're all rippley. Come back round"  
  
"I can see you clearly - what does this look like?" Pippin jabbed his hand into the air. It looked like a hand being stuck out of water on the other side.  
  
"Merry, come here"  
  
Merry jumped up  
  
"Merry, you take my hand and I'll pull you through"  
  
"OK" Merry replied "sure"  
  
He grabbed Pippins hand and Pippin pulled. But Merry did not come out on the other side. He vanished completely. 


	4. Animorphs

~ANIMORPHS~  
  
"What is that" gasped Rachel. They were in Cassie's barn, awaiting a meeting.  
  
"What?" asked Cassie. She was cleaning out birdcages and wasn't really listening  
  
"Oh, look can't you" snapped Rachel  
  
Cassie turned "Oh my God"  
  
It was a ripple in the air. A peregrin falcon suddenly flew in.  
  
What are you looking all het up about - Holy sh*t whats that said Jake, flying into a wall  
  
He quickly demorphed, and went to examine the ripple.  
  
"It's like water..."he mused  
  
A slightly demorphed seagull flew in. It finished demorphing and turned into Marco.  
  
He gasped. "Whoa, what's this?"  
  
Then Tobias came through. He had been flying more than a little too fast, and came zooming into the barn. In his suprise at the rippling, he forgot to slow down, and flew right into it. He vanished.  
  
It had the effect of water on him, and slowed him down. He found himself in a blackberry bush. He hopped out.  
  
He was in a garden. A little way off he saw a girl, with dark-blonde hair and a pine-marten on her lap.  
  
Then she stiffened, and stood up.  
  
"What is it, Pan?" she whispered, then suddenly turned to look at him. She came slowly, gently. Tobias suddenly felt that he had to get back to the shimmering. He had to, he had to.  
  
He hopped back in the bush. Suddenly he flapped his wings madly, trying to get back. He got tangled in the brambles. Desperately he stuck out his leg, and a talon got pushed in the shimmering.  
  
A hand stuck out, and grabbed his leg, and he was pulled in. Cassie had pulled him back through. Tobias flapped up to the rafters of the barn and relayed everything.  
  
But then something else came through. It was like a little person, but it had no shoes and hairy feet. It had brown curly hair, and it looked confused and a little scared.  
  
"Who are you" Jake inquired, on his guard  
  
"I am Merry Brandybuck, of the Shire" Merry gulped "Where am I?"  
  
"Where have you come from?"  
  
"The House of Elrond, Rivendell. Where in Middle-Earth am I?"  
  
Marco suddenly stood up. "Middle-Earth?"  
  
"Y-yes"  
  
"I was supposed to do a book report on you a few weeks ago, but I didn't manage to read the book"  
  
"But I'm not famous enough to be in a book!"  
  
"Maybe not you exactly, but this Middle-Earth place."  
  
"Wait" said Rachel "He's come out of a book?"  
  
"I dunno. I didn't read it, I just read the back and it said something about Middle-Earth. It might be another Middle-Earth I guess"  
  
"Sorry if this is rude"said Cassie "but what are you?"  
  
"I'm a hobbit. Or a halfling"  
  
Suddenly three more of the hobbits came through the ripple.  
  
"Pippin! And Frodo and Sam!"  
  
"OK where are we"  
  
"America" Jake said slowly  
  
"Oh Eru. Where's that?" 


	5. Harry

~Harry~  
  
Harry Potter was sitting at the side of the lake, doing History homework. It was an outrage, Ron had said, that Professor Binns had demanded a whole roll of parchment, just on witch burning.  
  
Ron had begged Hermione to let him read hers, but she had flatly refused, even though Ron had tried unsuccessfully to bribe her with Every Flavour beans.  
  
Stupid Ron. Harry had almost finished, and Ron hadn't even started. He finished his last sentence, and put quill, book and parchment back in his bag. He stood up and yawned.  
  
Then Harry stopped, in mid-yawn. He had seen something.  
  
He wasn't too worried about it, it was almost certainly a ghost playing a trick. He assured himself that was all it could be, but it had a funny feel about it, like it was trying to be overlooked. No ghost playing a trick would do that, the sole purpose of playing a trick was to be noticed, even ghosts knew that.  
  
It moved, and Harry, almost in a trance, followed it, into the castle. Hermione noticed, and tried to get his attention, but he didn't notice.  
  
She pulled at Ron, and they followed Harry through the castle, to a plain room none of them had been in before. The thing stopped. Harry came out of his trance, and for the first time Ron and Hermione saw the thing.  
  
It was a shimmering in the air. Whenever you tried to look at it properly, it dimmed, and became almost invisible, but if you looked at it from the corner of your eye, you saw it as a strong ripple, with specs of colour coming in and out of it.  
  
Hermione got her wand and tried to see what it was.  
  
"Nothing. It's like it's being shielded, but not by magic. I don't like it.  
  
Suddenly twig poked out of it. It suddenly disappeared. Ron gasped.  
  
"That's no ghost!" Hermione cried shrilly "And it's not magical. But it can't be natural!"  
  
Harry poked his wand into it. His wand disappeared.  
  
"Lumos" muttered Harry.  
  
Suddenly he felt something grab it. He jumped and pulled back.  
  
A girl was pulled through. She came through so quickly she fell onto the floor.  
  
"What are you looking at?" she spat  
  
A pine-marten, which had bitten her ankle, turned about to face Harry, Hermione and Ron.  
  
"Who are you?" Hermione asked in shock  
  
"I'm Lyra Silvertongue. Who are you, and what's that?"  
  
She jerked her thumb at the rippling.  
  
"You don't know?" said Ron in surprise  
  
"No. Am I supposed to?"  
  
"Well...if you don't know...and we don't know...what is it?"  
  
Lyra shrugged "Where is this, anyway?"  
  
"Hogwarts school for witchcraft and wizardry. You must be a muggle to not know that. I'm Ron and this is Hermione and Harry, by the way"  
  
"Maybe I am a muggle, maybe I'm not, but I bet I've done more than you. I've seen angels."  
  
"We live in a castle full of ghosts, so there"  
  
"Well I've been to the land of the dead and seen everyone that's ever died. Where're your daemons, anyhow?"  
  
"We don't have demons, we don't do evil."  
  
"Not demons, daemons. Like Pan."  
  
She held up the pine-marten  
  
"That's your daemon?"  
  
"Yes. You're probably like Will used to be, an they're inside."  
  
Malfoy suddenly came in. His face broke into a smile.  
  
"Well well well. Is this your girlfriend, Potter? Awww, how sweet."  
  
Lyra stepped forward "I'm Lyra Silvertongue. And you must be Rat Boy"  
  
Malfoy sneered "Pick your girlfriend off the street did you Potter? Or just out of Weasley's family?"  
  
Harry suddenly grabbed his wand as Hermione raised hers. Their joint spell hit Malfoy in the stomach and sent him out of  
  
the door.  
  
Lyra was white. "That was...magic?"  
  
"Yes, have you never - "  
  
A cat suddenly jumped out of the shimmering, looked around, and jumped back. Everyone looked at each other in surprise.  
  
The cat jumped back again, then it was followed by a dog, a squirrel, another dog, a harrier and a hawk.  
  
"I've seen you before" Lyra exclaimed to the hawk  
  
It turned to look at her I've seen you before  
  
All four of them jumped "What was that?" Hermione exclaimed  
  
Thought speak. YEERKS!  
  
All the animals seemed to focus their attention on their reaction.  
  
"What's a yeerk?" puzzled Ron  
  
All of them seemed to relax. Well, they're not yeerks Cassie said in private thought speak  
  
Four little people suddenly came through. The first one fell out and landed on the floor, and it was followed by a head poking out. The head looked down at the one on the floor, and waited for the other one before gingerly coming down. This was followed by two more.  
  
Harry suddenly stepped forward "OK, who are you?"  
  
No answer  
  
"Look, I'm Harry, and this is Ron, Hermione and Lyra"  
  
A dog stepped forward I'm Jake. We are the Animorphs. And, uh, these are the hobbits of the Shire  
  
The hobbits nodded  
  
This is Rachel, Cassie, Marco, Tobias, Ax, Frodo, Sam, Pippin and Merry said the dog called Jake We are trying to get the hobbits back to Middle- Earth  
  
"You're animals that can talk??"  
  
No, we are Animorphs. Humans that can turn into animals  
  
Suddenly all of them except the hobbits and the hawk began to twist, mutate. Lyra froze in shock-horror. The other three simply thought this was a strange form of Animagi.  
  
Where there had been five animals, there were now two boys, two girls and a strange blue centaur-like creature with many-fingered hands and a bladed tail  
  
"What are you?" gasped Hermione  
  
An Andalite  
  
"He means alien" said the boy with olive skin  
  
"And what" said Harry, addressing the hobbits "are you?"  
  
"We are hobbits of the Shire and of Middle-Earth. We were in Rivendell, but we went through that thing and then we were in a barn and we went through it again and we were here. He's the ringbearer" Pippin added, pointing at Frodo.  
  
"Well it looks like we've lost Middle-Earth, so we'd better stay with you" said Frodo, indicating the Animorphs  
  
"Yeah...we'd best go"said Rachel "bye"  
  
She grabbed a chair to stand on, but as she poked her head through she jumped in alarm.  
  
She brought her her back and jumped off the chair  
  
"It's...gone" she said in alarm "all of it. There's just a desert..."  
  
Let me see  
  
The hawk fluttered up, went in and came out again.  
  
Will we be able to get back?  
  
"Snapes outside the door" Hermione suddenly hissed "quick - he's about to come in"  
  
Not questioning Hermiones knowledge, Harry got on the chair and went through. He didn't want to be caught with five strange people, four hobbits, a bird and an alien.  
  
"Quick"  
  
They all went through  
  
But they were not in a desert.  
  
They were in a kitchen. 


	6. Will

~WILL~  
  
Will woke up dreading the day. It was a court case on the death of the man he had killed. He turned over and went back to sleep.  
  
An hour later, he was awake and dressed. He went downstairs to find Mary sitting at the table drinking coffee. She looked tense. Will made himself some and sat down.  
  
"How are you feeling?"  
  
Will shrugged  
  
"Don't worry, I'm sure you'll be OK."  
  
He shrugged again.  
  
"How's your mum?"  
  
"Fine, just a bit confused. She's getting better."  
  
Kirjava suddenly jumped in the window. She loved the night, and sometimes Will visited her in his dreams, running and jumping over fences, seen by no one.  
  
She leapt into his lap, and he stroked her. He wondered where Moxie, his old cat was. He hoped someone had taken pity on her and adopted her.  
  
He started wondering, was twelve old enough to go to jail? After all, he had committed manslaughter, maybe even murder.  
  
Mary had won hers, concerning the computer being destroyed. She had had to lie, as saying angels told her to do it would never stand up in any court. She had said the computer had started sparking, and in her hurry to turn it off she had wiped off the software. She had only just scraped it though, and she had still been fined.  
  
Will was glad Kirjava would be there, and Mary and Achand, the name she had given to her own daemon. If only Lyra...  
  
He found his eyes were stinging. He wiped them, and tried to prepare himself. He had always been scared of People, but had never been in a battle with the Authorities before.  
  
Will went up to his room. Kirjava followed him. Then...she stiffened.  
  
"Pantalaimon..." she whispered  
  
Will looked at her in surprise. "Huh?"  
  
"I can feel him...he's in this house."  
  
Will stared at her. Kirjava never spoke of Pan, or Lyra, because it made the pain worse.  
  
She suddenly jumped up and padded out. Will followed her. They went to the kitchen, and Kirjava stopped, cocking her ear.  
  
"Over here"  
  
Will followed her to the table. She went under it and he followed.  
  
He drew his breath quickly.  
  
Under the table there were three strange people, two boys and a girl. There was also six flies, four strange little people with hairy feet, and...  
  
Lyra, with Pantalaimon.  
  
They were all huddled together, in the space under the table.  
  
"Will?"  
  
"Lyra?"  
  
"The same." Lyra choked.  
  
He pulled her into his arms and they sat like that for about ten seconds.  
  
Pantalaimon and Kirjava were conversing, but not in words, in the almost telepathical way daemons do by touching. By the time they broke apart, Will and Lyra already knew everything important that had happened to the other.  
  
"Where is this ripple?" he asked Lyra  
  
The other people gaped at his knowledge  
  
How does he know? Rachel asked in private thought-speak  
  
"Its over by the door. Hang on" she said, staring "It's gone!"  
  
The boy with glasses and black hair said "They move. Our one moved anyway."  
  
"We'd better find it" said Lyra, jumping up  
  
"No! We can't all go, all nine of us!  
  
Fifteen  
  
Will jumped "What the hell was that?"  
  
Me. The fly on the table-leg. Least, I think it's a table-leg. Can't really tell with fly-vision.  
  
Just then, Mary came back from collecting the post. She saw Will under the table.  
  
"Will, what are you doing under the table?"  
  
She came to see what he was doing. Her mouth dropped open in surprise as she saw everything under the table.  
  
"Come out."  
  
They did  
  
"What are you doing here - Lyra, is that you?"  
  
"Yes"  
  
"How did you get here?"  
  
Lyra gestured vaguely "A ripple in the air, like water. It was over by the door" she said, pointing "but then it went somewhere - we'd better find it."  
  
She went out, followed by three teenagers and four - if Mary remembered rightly from her childhood readings of Tolkien - hobbits, each with one or two flies perches on their heads.  
  
She turned to Will, but he shrugged and followed them out.  
  
"Wait!"  
  
"What?"  
  
"You four can't go out! We don't have hobbits here!"  
  
One of them turned round and grinned. You're the first person to know who we are."  
  
"Well! You still can't go out, you'd cause a commotion in the street!"  
  
"We'll say it's fancy dress!" exclaimed Will impatiently  
  
"But what about your court case?"  
  
"Like I want to go. Come on!"  
  
Mary sighed in submission, and came out with them, Achand flying close by.  
  
Will came up to the boy with black hair and glasses. "I'm Will. You say your...rippling...moved. Where did it move to?"  
  
"I'm Harry. It went in a room...With bare boards and white walls."  
  
"That sounds like the museum. Good a place as any. This way" he said, leading out in front.  
  
They were about to turn down the road to the museum when they heard an exclamation from someone away down the road the road.  
  
"Better clue than the museum" muttered Will, and turned to go over the road, Kirjava leaping ahead to see if it was true.  
  
It was, and Will knew it the moment Kirjava did. She was getting rid of people, hissing and spitting and clawing the air. A normal cat couldn't have carried it off, but Kirjava was twice as big as normal cat size, and when Pantalaimon and Achand joined her, they looked so weird and unnatural people cleared off.  
  
Lyra bent down to have a look through. It was not her own world. Tobias flew out as a hawk from inside a shrub, where he had demorphed. He flew into the ripple and out again  
  
No  
  
Frodo also looked through. "Not Rivendell."  
  
"Wait, wait" Mary suddenly cried "I'm not getting this at all! Who are you all, and what is this ripple?"  
  
Lyra stood up. "OK, a few little introductions. Tobias, there's a public toilet over there. Tell them to demorph in there."  
  
OK. Did you hear what she said?  
  
Yes  
  
Buzz off, then..heh heh  
  
So not funny  
  
The flies dispersed.  
  
"OK, Mary, this is Frodo, Merry, Pippin and Sam" Lyra said, going along the line of hobbits.  
  
Mary's jaw dropped "Frodo Baggins?"  
  
"Yes"  
  
"Of Bag End?"  
  
"Yes"  
  
"A ringbearer?"  
  
"Yes, but I don't really want it spoken about."  
  
"Oh...OK"  
  
"This" said Lyra, continuing "is Harry, Hermione and Ron, from Hogwarts"  
  
"Right"  
  
"And" Lyra waited for the Animorphs to come back "This is Marco, Jake, Rachel, Cassie, Tobias and Ax."  
  
"Hellooooo. I ammm ananan Andalite. Lite. Litelitelite. Ly-tuh"  
  
"Before you ask, no, he's not mad" said Marco "He's an alien"  
  
They sat in silence for a few moments. Pippin suddenly said "Let's check again. It might have changed."  
  
He stood up and poked his head through the ripple. He saw trees, a small waterfall, even a couple of rabbits. It looked picturesque.  
  
Pippin brought his head back and said "Let's go through. It's lovely in there.  
  
No one moved  
  
"Please!"  
  
"OK" said Merry "You coming"  
  
"Yeah, alright" said Frodo "Come on Sam"  
  
"We'll come too" said Ron  
  
"We will if everyone else is" said Jake  
  
"I'll only go if you do, Will" said Lyra  
  
"Yeah, I'll come. Don't leave me to be eaten by the Judge!"  
  
"Jesus! Oh, I might as well come" said Mary, though she was secretly hoping to see the mulefa and Atal again.  
  
They all headed through the ripple, into the beautiful landscape.  
  
They all sat down, then Cassie said "What exactly are we gonna do?"  
  
"I don't know...probably just check every few minutes to see if one of our worlds has come back. It's a nicer place to wait than back there, anyway." replied Merry vaguely  
  
Cassie stood up "We don't know how many there are! There could be millions! Will, Mary, if I were you, I would get back to your world before it's too late!  
  
"I suppose" said Will. He kissed Lyra goodbye - a long, long kiss. Then he walked over to the ripple and wriggled through, as it was on the ground.  
  
He found himself drowning. 


	7. Eowyn

~EOWYN~  
  
Eowyn picked up what she hoped would be the last stitch she had dropped in her knitting. She couldn't stand knitting, but had decided to accept her life. And if living a normal woman's life required knitting, knitting she must do.  
  
Her head began to ache. Slowly the seconds passed. Her head drooped. Her eyes slowly closed...  
  
She snapped awake. She, battling to keep her emotions under control and to not scream with frustration, picked up her knitting up from the floor.  
  
She stopped.  
  
She couldn't do it, she decided, it was not possible. She could not be a woman, at least not in the way she was required to be for society to accept her.  
  
Eowyn got up, went to the kitchen and got herself a pair of scissors. Lock after lock of golden hair fell to the floor.  
  
She ran upstairs, pulled off her dress and put on mans clothing. She put on a heavy coat with a hood to disguise her face and figure.  
  
Eowyn had no idea where she was going, just that she was going to escape from Rohan, and Gondor, maybe to the north, possibly beyond Mordor, to the great desert, even, if everything else failed, try to sail away from Middle- Earth altogether, even if she drowned or worse in the effort.  
  
Eowyn packed a saddle-bag full of bare essentials: Some food and a water- skin, a light blanket, a tinder-box, all her money...  
  
Out in the stables, she backed her favourite mare and rode off, as fast as she could.  
  
She saw something, as she turned a corner. She stopped to have a look, taking little precautions.  
  
Eowyn jabbed her finger at it. It disappeared. She yanked it back. Her finger was still whole, so she put her head in.  
  
She was on the top of a hill, looking down into a vast valley. It was very windy on the hill, but in the valley it looked calm and peaceful. There was wildlife; no actual animals near her, but she could see lots of rabbit- holes in the little concaves in the hill, and in the valley she could see a small herd of wild cows, but no actual civilisation.  
  
Eowyn yanked her head back. She took the horses reigns and proceeded to lead her through.  
  
Then she felt bad.  
  
The hill with the valley certainly looked very nice, but it might have all sorts of hidden dangers. She didn't mind it too much herself, but she shouldn't drag the poor horse into it.  
  
Eowyn sighed, but she had already made her choice. She took off the saddle- bag and slung it over her back.  
  
Then, not even looking back, she left Middle-Earth in one step. 


	8. The Valley of Dreams

~THE VALLEY OF DREAMS~  
  
Will kicked and tried not to breathe in. He was under the sea, in saltwater anyway, as he could tell from the way his eyes were stinging.  
  
But he had to keep them open. Otherwise he'd never find the ripple again.  
  
But then his lungs were burning like fire, and he found himself getting dizzy. With a shock, he realised that if he didn't get to the surface soon he would drown!  
  
Summoning all his strength, he kicked his legs and tried to get to the surface.  
  
20 meters  
  
15 meters  
  
12 meters  
  
10 meters  
  
7 meters  
  
5 meters  
  
2 meters...  
  
Will broke the surface and gasped. The feeling of happiness that he had survived was quickly replaced by a depression that he was lost, and would now never even see Lyra, or Mary, or his mother ever again. Why had he spent precious time kissing Lyra? Now he looked back, it was bonkers.  
  
A wave of exhaustion broke over him. He let himself be washed over to a large piece of driftwood, rolled onto it and fell asleep.  
  
He woke up to see young man with scruffy blonde hair looking at him anxiously.  
  
He lurched up, then promptly fell over again.  
  
"Don't try"  
  
He jumped in surprise. The voice did not match the appearance.  
  
"You'll be too weak to even stand up for a while. Here, have some water.  
  
Will took the strange cup. It wasn't really a cup - actually it was half a apple with the inside hollowed out, but Will took it gladly, feeling the salt on his lips being washed away.  
  
"Who are you?" he croaked, when he could speak.  
  
The young man with the funny voice laughed. "Who am I? Or who I pretend to be?"  
  
"Who are you?"  
  
"I am Eowyn of the Mark. I gave up being a woman in Middle-Earth society."  
  
"You're a woman?"  
  
"Yes"  
  
"Is Middle-Earth the same place as where hobbits come from?"  
  
"The Halflings? Yes."  
  
"Is this Middle-Earth?"  
  
"No. You're the first human I've seen here, besides myself. Do you live over the sea?"  
  
"No, I don't come from here at all. I - how did you come in?"  
  
"Through a rippling in the air."  
  
"Me too - only I came out in the sea and I couldn't find it again under the water. And I came from somewhere before that, too."  
  
"Where?"  
  
"Oxford, in England"  
  
"Never heard of either, I'm afraid. Look, my - house - is over there. Can you get up yet?"  
  
"Yes, I think - ohhhh" yelped Will, trying to get up and falling again.  
  
Eowyn caught him, and they went down to her 'house' together.  
  
It was a small cave in the cliff, with a pile of rocks outside, evidently against tide-disasters.  
  
Will went in, but to his surprise it had a small gap about 45cm wide. This opened out into another room, but with a rather low ceiling. This room was however shrunk a little by the pile of rocks in one corner. It was incredibly cold.  
  
Eowyn meanwhile was making a fire outside. She had made herself almost a grill with a flat, thin stone. The fire was surrounded by a wall of biggish pebbles, re-enforced with seaweed and sand. It also had a small hole, dug in the sand, so extra fuel could be added or it could be blown down  
  
She got a handful of limpets from what looked like a basket made of green twigs, stuck together with some kind of glue.  
  
She saw Wills face and grinned. "I don't normally eat limpets - they're so fiddly to get out of their shells, and you have to do a hell of a lot of them to get a proper meal. When I found this cave it seemed perfect, but all the walls were covered in limpets. I had an awful job getting them off and it seems silly to waste them" she added, levering them out of their shells and putting them on the flat stone.  
  
They sat in silence as Eowyn tended the fire, cooking the limpets. Evening was drawing on. Finally Will turned to Eowyn and said "If you're the first person ever to find this place, you can name it. What are you going to call it?"  
  
Eowyn pondered for a moment, then turned to him and replied "The valley of Dreams" 


	9. Enter Crayak

~CRAYAK~  
  
Crayak sat on his throne, seeing all, watching everything. Then something caught his attention, far away on a distant planet.  
  
The planet where the Animorhs, the ones that had thwarted his Howlers were.  
  
He focused more of his attention on that planet. What he saw intrigued him so much he focused all his attention on it.  
  
What he saw now shocked him far more than anything before.  
  
It was a wormhole, just, there, no black hole or anything, just there, where anything could come in or go out.  
  
Maybe because he was focusing so hard on that one spot he found something else, just a wisp of something, but it was there.  
  
Crayak now examined this, and found just where the wormhole must open out in. If he had had body temperature, he would have gone cold.  
  
The wormhole opened out in his own little nook of the Universe, even though he had made thousands of precautions that he wouldn't be found physically, like putting it dangerously close to death.  
  
Crayak sat there, terrified, hoping that the wormhole would somehow vanish.  
  
But it didn't  
  
He ran through everything, which was a great deal, anything he ever knew about wormholes, and found that the opening had to be somewhere in his own place. He took his attention off that planet and brought it to his own body. This intensified it hundreds of thousands of times, because he needn't throw it such a long way. He found it in a fraction of a second, and looked at it closely.  
  
It was beautiful. A rippling, looking about 30 centimetres across, though Crayak, who could see in many dimensions, knew that was merely an illusion, and really it had no size, it was as large as a galaxy and more, and yet smaller than the tiniest molecule, and every size in between those two.  
  
Crayak tried to control it, to move it, but drew a blank. It could not be controlled by him, and felt like it could not be controlled by anyone.  
  
Then it changed, not in size or shape but in some other way. Crayak could not work it out, so he threw his attention back to the wormhole end on the Animorph's planet. To his surprise it no longer led to his own space, but to a forest, with tall trees looking as if they were poking out of the atmosphere.  
  
The shock hit him like a punch n the face.  
  
It was not of that Universe. 


	10. Atal

Note: I can't do italics so the phrases that have stars around are meant to be in italics.  
  
~ATAL~  
  
It was Atal the zalif that saw the Tulapi coming over the hill. No one else would have noticed, but Atal had something that some called "different" and others called very unnatural. And she had only been that way since Mary had come, with her fast-as-lightning mind and ability to improvise.  
  
*Tulapi! Tulapi! Coming here!*  
  
She had aroused the mulefa, and they sped down the hill on the seed-pods, away from the giant white birds coming out of the sea.  
  
They waited in silence, as the tulapi wrecked their little village that they had only just fully restored from the last attack.  
  
Something was different this time though. The birds usually just ate all the food, got rid of the seed pods and left.  
  
This time they simply stayed there, balefully watching the mulefa huddling together some way off.  
  
They stayed like that for hours, then the mulefa finally admitted defeat and left, as they needed somewhere to go for the night.  
  
Atal didn't like the way the birds had behaved. It seemed they wanted the village for themselves, but tulapi hated land, being awkward and uncomfortable on it.  
  
Atal puzzled at it, before giving up and going to talk to her friend Holdaf. Atal wanted him to come with her to look at them, but Holdaf didn't see what the fuss was about and besides, he was scared of the tulapi.  
  
Atal decided to go on her own and left on her seed-pod. She reminded herself she could easily escape the birds; she was many times faster on land.  
  
When she got there, she was stunned to see people like Mary with the tulapi. Not just them, she saw horrific monsters with things that looked like Mary's knife all over their bodies. She set off at top speed back to the camp.  
  
But something was above her. A great tank, hovering in the sky above her.  
  
Beams of light that burnt everything they past through were coming out of it. Atal weaved here and there, trying to escape the deadly beams of light.  
  
Into the trees. The thing soared high above them, and continued to shoot beams of light at her, going straight through the centre of a tree on occasion.  
  
It was unstoppable.  
  
But possibly she could get it to fly into something. There was a huge ditch, really more of a small valley, not so far away. Atal blew out of the trees and made for it. The thing came down low again.  
  
She was nearly at the ditch. She had gone quickly into it before, when she had first got her seed-pod and had wanted to try it out, but she had never done it at this speed before and never when she was so tired. Probably she would injure herself when she went in, maybe fatally, but as she was going to die anyway, that didn't seem to matter. At least she had a chance.  
  
Over the edge. Atal was plummeting down, at a speed that was terrifying. The thing went down with her, still shooting.  
  
Too late Atal saw a rock.  
  
She flew through the air, down to the bottom in a heap.  
  
CRASH!  
  
The thing had landed, very hard, a little while off. Atal carefully checked herself. She had a broken claw, and a whole load of pulled muscles. Her seed pod had cracked and was useless. In all, she was surprised she was still alive.  
  
Atal started up the slope, aching with every rock of her body. Unfortunately, this meant she had to pass the thing. What if it woke up and killed her?  
  
As she passed, something caught her eye. There was a person inside, one of Mary's people. His head was hanging on by a thread. As she watched, something grey started coming out of his ear.  
  
Atal froze. She didn't know what it was, but it looked suspiciously like the person's brain. Atal turned away, and continued up the slope. 


	11. Sheep roasting on an open fire

~SHEEP ROASTING ON AN OPEN FIRE~  
  
Mary stuck her head through the ripple and choked. her head was submerged in water. She yanked it back, dripping.  
  
"What happened?" asked Jake  
  
"It was underwater, saltwater, oh my god Will didn't come back" Mary gabbled "He'll be drowned!"  
  
"No, I mean, it could have changed after he went through, it could have!" Lyra was gabbling as well.  
  
"Well, there's nothing we can do now"  
  
They sat in silence. Lyra started to cry, but too quietly for anyone to hear. Cassie noticed and went to talk to her. Finally Pippin said "I'm hungry"  
  
"We all are. We need to find somewhere to sleep too. It's getting dark" said Sam  
  
"Why?" asked Marco "can't we just wait till it changes then go somewhere there's daylight?"  
  
Hermione got up and peered through "It's not water any more, but it looks like exactly the same time of day as here. Everything must be parallel in that aspect anyway"  
  
Mary stood up. She was the oldest here, apart from the hobbits, and they didn't seem like they were going to do anything, so she took charge "Right, half of us had better look for food and water, the other half look for shelter" She turned to the Animorphs "You can turn into animals, right?"  
  
"Yes"  
  
"You had better do the food then. You can catch something. That's six. The rest of us will look for somewhere to sleep. We'll meet back here"  
  
They split up. The Animorphs headed into the little wood.  
  
"Tobias, what's the most common food here?"  
  
Squirrels. It's overrun with squirrels. There's a few birds here and there but they're too small.  
  
"Easiest way of catching them?"  
  
Birds. Usually it's hard catching squirrels but as there's six of us we can swarm them  
  
"OK, everyone morph"  
  
They changed into the bird of prey morphs. Cassie did one of her most complex transformations, giving herself bird sight, hearing, wings and feathers before going fully.  
  
They flew up above the trees. There were terrific thermals, better than anything even Tobias had experienced before. In just half an hour, they had six squirrels.  
  
That wasn't enough. They needed enough to feed thirteen.  
  
You can't feed thirteen people on squirrels! said Rachel furiously.  
  
Well...if we have no choice, we could morph to fleas and suck blood Cassie murmured  
  
No. We should try the open land beyond the wood. There'll surely be something there  
  
They flew past the wood and to the open fields. There was a small flock of sheep, evidently wild, living in a field that had long green grass.  
  
Lamb chops said Marco Go for it  
  
Cassie?  
  
Yeah, I... I guess. I mean, one sheep, there's a whole flock, wouldn't matter.  
  
What morph would be best?  
  
Wolf.  
  
They demorphed and remorphed, to wolf. Ax stayed as Andalite, and Tobias was in the skies, watching for danger and providing tactics.  
  
With an Andalite and a hawk, four wolves brought down a sheep very easily, demorphed and headed back to the waterfall, carrying the sheep.  
  
The other eight were already there, having found a cave with nothing in it about a half a mile away.  
  
"Come on. It's up there."  
  
'Up there' meant uphill over rotting leaves, sharp stones and a murky stream. For the Animorphs this meant no shoes, but nobody wanted to morph after so much already, so they went up the hill, Marco complaining all the way.  
  
The cave was cold. "I suppose w-we sh-should g-get some w-wood for a f- fire" said Frodo, shivering. He started to get up, but Hermione said "Oh please" and tipped her wand. Blue flames shot out of it and burnt, with no fuel, on the cold floor.  
  
"Show-off" muttered Ron  
  
Everyone crowded round the fire, and Ax chopped the meat into chunks. Ron, not wanting to give Hermione all the attention, tried to do a hovering charm on a chunk to suspend it over the fire but missed, hitting Lyra and levitating her half a metre in the air. Hermione sighed and did it herself, turning it round and round so it got cooked on all sides. Ron sat sulking.  
  
The meat was hot, and very juicy and greasy. It felt like eating cave-man meat.  
  
After Hermione assured everyone her fire was perfectly safe, and would not go out, the company, one by one, went to sleep, huddled together on the hard floor. The fire kept sending shadows everywhere. Mary struggled to keep her eyes open but slowly found herself dropping away...  
  
She was in a dream, of strange things all to do with food, it seemed. There was a jelly plant there, a burger tree here, a hambush...  
  
Hambush  
  
Ambush  
  
Mary snapped awake in time to see the monster entering the cave. 


End file.
